After a car wreck snowballed into the exposure of his affairs with numerous women, Tiger Woods has taken an indefinite leave from golf and the PGA. These multiple affairs have led to many of his endorsements dropping him, such as AT&T and Accenture and gossip of a divorce with his wife Elin Nordegren. Woods has been reported to have checked into a sex rehab clinic in early January and most recently left with his wife within the past couple of weeks, after being there for nearly a month. Woods has clearly made efforts in fixing his problems and repairing his marriage. But why do some toss his image as an athlete out the window because of this incident?

  The same people that are currently bashing Woods for his recent scandal are the very same people that don’t pick up that television remote every Sunday to watch him post a heroic comeback in the final pairing. They are the same people who didn’t see him win on a broken leg in the 2008 U.S. Open at Torrey Pines over Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole playoff. Woods has provided the sports world with the same excitement that Michael Jordan and Babe Ruth did. He brings the intangibles that every sports fan loves to see: the killer-instinct, the performance in clutch situations, the undeniable will to win and his passion for the game. Tiger has rejuvenated the sport and brought so much intensity to the game that people have grown to love. He is arguably the best to ever play the game over the likes of Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and is queued to break the all-time majors record 

of 18 set by the “Golden Bear” Nicklaus himself.  We seem to put these great athletes on a pedestal. And because Tiger makes mistakes, all is lost.

   We are not condoning Woods’ actions in any way but we need to take him for what he has always been to us: an extremely talented athlete. Yes, his affairs were wrong but we shouldn’t let that get in the way of what he has done for golf and for sports fans around the world. We need to let Tiger deal with his personal business on his own.  It’s between him, his wife and his children.  We ought not to let this get in the way of his talent or taint his records.  This situation hasn’t hurt anyone but him and it hasn’t affected any previous accomplishments he has made, so why do we all the sudden lose all hope for such a great athlete?  Surely his mistakes can’t expel him from the hierarchy of professional sports. 

  Let’s let the 14-time major champion take care of his personal issues and within the coming months, he’ll  prove us wrong.  Tiger has come back from the death of his father and reconstructive knee surgery. “Comeback” is something Woods specializes in. As miraculous as this may seem, Tiger will be back by April, just in time for the Masters, to claim yet another green jacket at Augusta